The Pointless Loss of El Faro

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

About three miles beneath the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean, 35 nautical miles north of Crooked Island in the Bahamas, at 23.2°N 73.7°W, rests SS El Faro, a 790-foot-long cargo ship that was lost at sea on October 1, a victim of Hurricane Joaquin. The ship and her entire 33-man crew were lost; other than one unidentifiable body and an empty lifeboat in a debris field, little else has yet been found. (The ship had two lifeboats that had more than enough space for the entire crew as well as supplies; it is unknown if the crew, a well-trained crew of professionals, even had the chance to abandon ship.)

El Faro had been on its way from Jacksonville, Florida, to Puerto Rico. And there lies the problem. It did not need to be there, stormy day or sunny day, and it does not now need to be at the bottom of the Atlantic, with 33 dead. An American law known colloquially as the Jones Act created the reason the ship was where it was and now, where it is.
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Magic! (Real Magic Not Included)

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I wanted the ultimate magic kit when I was a kid, but as with so many things in life, disappointment lay in the fact that the magic kits grew more complex, more “magical,” only with higher prices.

Each of them included a “magic wand,” which was just a wooden dowel painted black, or, in the more expensive kits, painted black with a white tip, because a white tip equals classy. The photo of the kid on the magic box with the white tipped wand often showed the kid in tails and with a top hat. (I am sure that because of kids like me, or because of just me, the toy companies needed to add the disclaimer, “Hat and tails not in package.”)
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Be It Ever so Humble

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The word “humblebrag” has been around long enough that even I have heard of it. (Is that a humblebrag?) A collection of examples has been collected in a book that I have not yet read, entitled, “Humblebrag.” The word is common enough that it is even in the Oxford Dictionary, at least in the online edition.

For some reason, I only recently learned the term and, egomaniac that I am, I thought that I had come up with the concept years ago. I certainly had not.
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